


Worst Fears

by chrissy_sky



Series: Halloween 2015 [7]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: But not in the Captain Jack sense, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 21:42:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5106734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrissy_sky/pseuds/chrissy_sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian comes home and gets a terrible shock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worst Fears

**Author's Note:**

> Xenophobe - Someone reacts rather strongly to the idea of an outsider entering fledgling lands. / Damian

Xenophobe - Someone reacts rather strongly to the idea of an outsider entering fledgling lands. / Damian

-

Bodies of ninja littered the surfaces of the Wayne Manor as Damian made his way through what he now considered his home. He cared not for any of them, but he was frantic to find anyone that wasn't a dead ninja. Because, if there were bodies in his home, there had to have been a reason for his family to kill. They had been left with no alternative. 

Heart in his throat, Damian raced on, heading downstairs to the cave. There was nothing to be found in any of the upper floors and if the others were holed up somewhere, it would be down there. 

He found Todd first, sprawled on the floor with a telltale hole in his helmet, blood pooling around his body. Todd held guns in his loose, dead hands, and Damian felt a dull ache. He and Todd had never been close but the fact that he had been there, he'd come home and tried to protect everyone, meant something. It had to. His father would be devastated.

Damian forced himself to move onward. 

Brown was next, a slightly sharper ache. He never got along with her well, but they worked together on occasion. Her body was pinned to the wall by a katana. Pausing briefly to check for a pulse--there was none--he forced himself to move onward. 

He found Dick and Titus next, and Damian's knees almost gave out under him. He was grateful for the darkness not letting him take in the carnage entirely, but he saw enough that he knew he would always see the scene, in his mind, forevermore. From the position of their bodies, Damian could only be grateful that it appeared they had died trying to protect each other. 

But Titus had only been a dog, a loyal companion, and Damian's anger grew. It surged him on, to avenge his brother and best friend, ready to make an argument with his father about killing.

It wasn't needed. Batman's body lay prone where it had slumped against the computers. There were multiple wounds, which made sense to Damian in an abstract way. It would have taken a lot for someone to finally kill his father. Even so, it hardly seemed real. He wanted to go and shake his father, as if the man were just sleeping, but the blood on the floor proved otherwise. He resisted the urge and turned to take in the rest of the cave.

Drake was there, fighting Ra's in heated combat, katana versus bo staff. They both were excessively wounded by this point, but neither seemed to be tiring. Part of Drake's mask was gone and a visible blue eye looked crazed. 

Damian surged forward to aid Drake, to end his grandfather's madness and avenge their family, a cry of rage in his throat. He didn't need answers, didn't want to demand why Ra's had done this terrible deed. He just wanted to see him dead on the floor just like they were. 

From out of the floor, snakes shot up, large and powerful, to wrap around Damian's body. He could not fight them or cut himself loose. He struggled against their strength regardless, his entire focus to helping Drake fight. 

"Damian!" Drake cried and that was all the distraction Ra's needed. He was on the floor, feed knocked down under him, with Ra's boot on his stomach and the end of the sword at his throat. 

Ra's' smirk was maniacal. "My dear Damian. Admit now that this was a mistake, come back to me, and I may spare this one for you to keep."

Damian sneered angrily, continuing to struggle. "You will not kill him. Drake is your only worthy opponent, and the only one you see worthy of inheriting your empire now." 

"Never doubt my intentions, Damian." The end of the blade nicked the skin of Drake's throat. "Last chance, boy."

Drake grimaced at the cut. "Don't, Damian. Get out of here…"

The plea just urged Damian to keep struggling futilely. "Shut up, Drake. You're making it worse."

"Kill me now, Ra's," Drake went on. "I'd make a terrible slave and you know it. I'd only make Damian turn against you in the end. Too much like Bruce, remember?"

"So be it," Ra's replied and the blade sunk in with a sickly, wet noise before Damian could raise further protest. 

He continued to struggle, even as Drake's body went limp and the sight of the gore. 

Ra's' expression was unrepentant. "So ends the line. You'll learn not to disobey me again, Damian. My will is absolute."

Damian hardly heard him. He continued to struggle against the snakes holding him, needing to get to Drake, needing--

\--his eyes snapped open, and he stared up at a dark, familiar ceiling. The only sound in his ears was his own panting. 

He was in the manor still and it was night. The ceiling above him was from his own bedroom, not the cave. He didn't smell the stench of blood and gore, but instead fresh linen, as if Alfred had just done the laundry. 

Pennyworth! Where was he, had he survived after all? Had his grandfather spared the old servant, thinking him to be useless? 

Damian tried to sit up, but his hands and legs were bound to the bed he lay upon. He tugged on them regardless, needing to be free, needing to find Pennyworth and get the old man out of here, before it was too late--

"Damian?"

Damian froze. That wasn't Pennyworth's voice, or his grandfather's. It was soft and a little husky, spoken close to his ear. He noticed, then, there was a body beside him in the bed.

"Shh, it's okay." The person beside him sat up and flicked on the bedside lamp, setting it on a low setting so that his eyes had time to adjust. 

Damian squinted at them and sagged on the bedding as his eyes confirmed what his ears were telling him. Tim Drake-Wayne sat beside him on the bed, eyes puffy from just having woken up, but free of blood and very much alive. 

"Timothy," he sighed before he could help himself. If this was a hallucination or dream, he hoped it would never end.

Drake's face contorted into a tired, wry smile, and Damian realized belatedly that he'd spoken that last part out loud. "Why Damian. I never knew you could be so eloquent." 

Damian felt his face heat up, but he didn't have the strength to be mad at Drake. "I have many hidden talents you know nothing about," he said instead.

"I see. Are you calm enough that I can let you loose?"

Damian looked at his wrists and noticed now that what bound him to the bed were straps. He could have likely freed himself in time, but what was more troubling was that he had no recollection of being tied. "I believe so."

"Good." Tim proceeded to loosen the straps, but just the ones on his wrists. "Because if you're not, I'll have to tie you up again. Can you sit up for me?"

Damian did so, slowly, his muscles feeling strangely lethargic. He rubbed his wrists as Tim adjusted the pillows behind him. 

"Here, drink this," Tim said after, handing him a glass of water. The floppy hair that constantly got in his eyes did nothing to hide the blatant concern on his features.

It was not often that Tim looked at him with such an expression. Damian drank the water, realized he was actually quite thirsty, and drank some more. "What happened?" he asked after a moment. "I saw you die. Ra's…"

The sympathetic look on Drake's face only increased. "Was that what you saw, me dying?"

Damian nodded slowly. 

Tim reached out, with obvious hesitation, to touch Damian's cheek and the hair just over his ear. Then, very gently, Tim's thumb brushed the dampness on his cheek away. "It's okay. I'm alright."

"Let me see your neck," Damian blurted, stubbornly, but didn't take the words back. 

Tim sighed and pulled his hand away, which Damian regretted, because the touch was at least a tactile proof that this was really happening. Tim unbuttoned his shirt and showed Damian the pale skin of his neck and shoulders, where no fresh cuts existed. There were some old wounds, but certainly nothing that Tim had earned in the last twenty-four hours.

Damian reached out and touched the spot on Tim's neck tenderly. "It was right here. He cut you open." He could still hear the sound of Drake's last, wet breath before nothing. 

Drake placed his hand over Damian's. "I'm okay. I'm alive. Do you remember anything from last night?"

Damian tried to remember. "I was on a mission. Afterwards, I came home, and the manor was in shambles. There were bodies everywhere--"

Tim was already shaking his head. "You came home because we brought you home. Last night, we were tracking down Two Face, Poison Ivy, and Scarecrow. You went in too early, when I told you not to, and you got a face full of Fear Toxin for your troubles."

The knowledge sent further waves of relief through his body. "Then none of it was real?"

Tim nodded firmly. "Whatever you saw after that, it was just the toxin. I promise."

"It felt so real," Damian confessed softly. "As if I could wake up again at any moment, and find that that's the reality, and this is the dream."

Tim smiled faintly. "This isn't the dream. Would you rather talk to Bruce or Dick? It was my turn to watch you, but I can go get them…"

Damian thought about it but eventually shook his head in the negative. "No. Stay, please."

"Well, since you finally started calling me by my name, I guess I don't mind." Tim's smile grew a little wider. "Though would it kill you to call me something less formal? Nobody calls me 'Timothy'." 

Damian huffed. "That's why I want to."

Tim still looked tired, but even more amused now. "Suit yourself, nestling." 

"Don't call me that," Damian said, without heat.

"If you get to call me Timothy, I get to call you Nestling."

Damian supposed, after what he had seen that night, that it was fair. Especially as Tim had yet to call him on crying over his death, not yet anyway. He and the other boy didn't exactly have the best relationship.

Which is probably why his request for him to stay probably confused Drake a great deal. 

"Lie down," Tim said. 

"I'm not sure I can sleep now," Damian confessed. He thought he would only have more bizarre dreams, and he still wasn't absolutely certain that this was real.

"I promise, Damian. This isn't a dream." Tim smiled again. "I wouldn't make much of a good dream for you, anyway."

Damian snorted but didn't agree or disagree with that statement. He leaned back against the propped up pillows and, slowly, began to tell Tim about the toxin-induced hallucinations. 

He held onto Tim's arm. Tim never mentioned it. 


End file.
